WND EXCLUSIVE

Zimmerman 'has PTSD, millions in debt'

'His life is ruined by what they've done to him'

George Zimmerman is drowning in $2.5 million in debt and is said to be showing signs of a severe psychological condition following the beleaguered Neighborhood Watch volunteer’s acquittal for the murder of Trayvon Martin last summer.

Journalist and author Jack Cashill, who covers the Zimmerman case in his new book, “If I Had a Son: Race, Guns, and the Railroading of George Zimmerman,” believes that the Florida man’s latest actions are uncharacteristic of the person Zimmerman was before the Trayvon shooting and may be a sign that he is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD

“I’ve talked to his father and his brother and they said he’s just not the same person. I would say PTSD is probably a pretty good description of what’s going on,” Cashill told WND. “They took his job, took his marriage, the whole thing cost him tremendously and the media gloried in his screw-ups.”

Zimmerman – who is said to have gained 120 pounds since his 2012 arrest – reappeared in the news this week as word came out that he been arrested on domestic assault charges relating to an alleged altercation with his girlfriend. He is accused of pointing a shotgun at her.

In September, he was also accused of domestic assault by his estranged wife. Since his acquittal, he has accumulated two speeding tickets.

Cashill said believes Zimmerman exhibited the thousand-yard stare, the limp, unfocused glaze of a battle-weary soldier that is often a symptom of PTSD.

“He had the thousand-yard stare. You saw it during the trial. He didn’t look sane when he was in that trial – he was utterly disengaged,” he explained. “That he is suffering from some total breakdown seems totally obvious at this point.”

Cashill said Zimmerman’s family had growing concerns about Zimmerman’s mental well-being.

“I asked his father, ‘How does George sleep at night?’ And he just looked at me and said sadly, ‘I’m not sure he does.’ They knew that George was in trouble emotionally,” he said. “During his year under house arrest, the one time they found him going out someplace, the police followed him to a sporting goods store because they were afraid he was going to buy some guns – he was buying a bulletproof vest. What kind of shopping spree that is.”

Cashill said he believes the media and federal government’s relentless pursuit of Zimmerman drove the man to ruin his own life.

“Soon as the verdict came in, everything changed,” he said. “There’s a weekend of hubbub, but then they didn’t want to talk about it anymore. They didn’t want to revisit it because they know how guilty they are. His life is ruined by what they’ve done to him.”

Cashill thinks they won’t stop pursuing Zimmerman until he meets a tragic end.

“I think they might not be satisfied until he kills himself or someone kills him,” Cashill grimly concluded.

“If I Had A Son” tells how for the first time in the history of American jurisprudence, a state government, the U.S. Department of Justice, the White House, the major media, the entertainment industry and the vestiges of the civil rights movement conspired to put an innocent man in prison for the rest of his life.

All that stood between Zimmerman and lifetime internment were two folksy local lawyers, their aides and some very dedicated citizen journalists, most notably an unpaid handful of truth seekers at the blogging collective known as the Conservative Treehouse. “If I Had a Son” takes an inside look at this unprecedented battle formation.

It also tells the story of the six stalwart female jurors who ignored the enormous pressure mounting around them and preserved America’s belief in its judicial system.

In the wake of the verdict, skeptics in the Martin camp claimed that the state of Florida did not play to win. In the course of his research, Cashill came across some startling evidence that suggests those skeptics may indeed be right.